Presumption
by GirlDressedInBlack
Summary: The Doctor arrives on a planet plagued by deadly rain and finds the Mistress wandering the surface beneath her purple umbrella. She is offended by the notion that she would play the same trick twice and decides to help him solve the problem if only to prove him wrong.


This was meant to be serious but turned out as amateur dramatic and cracky.

* * *

"Really? You did this again?" The Doctor asks, stepping in front of the woman with the umbrella, arms crossed and eyebrows clearly displaying his disgust.

The woman frowns in response, folding the arm not holding the umbrella across her own chest.

"Believe it or not, no. I'm not a one-trick horse or pony or whatever it is your silly little humans call it." The Mistress says scornfully, gesturing up to the sky irritatedly.

" _This_ has no finesse. People just up and die. No ulterior motive, no bigger plan, no recycling. _How_ could you think I would do something so boring?" She asks, head tilted up imperiously, rather offended by the grey haired man's accusation.

"Also you should probably get under the umbrella. You're beginning to get slight burns and Rassilon knows I don't want to have to cart you off to wherever the hell you left your Tardis this time." The Time Lady adds, looking away.

The Doctor does as suggested, arms still crossed defiantly.

"You see, that's what you would say if you _were_ behind all this." He insists, careful to stay close to her given the umbrella was only really meant for one person.

The Mistress huffs but doesn't pull the umbrella away from him.

"You'll see. We'll go and shut this simpleton down and then you'll see that I have nothing to do with it." She says, stopping and forcing the Doctor to stop beside her to walk into the burning rain again. Missy sticks out a hand in the small space between them and the Doctor stares at it in confusion.

"What are you doing?" He asks, eyes finding her face.

"Shaking on it- it's a thing humans do, isn't it? Thought you might like it considering it's from your favourite planet." The Time Lady explains, exasperatedly.

There's a pause as the Doctor regards her hand suspiciously.

"Oh- for the love of-" Missy sighs, grabbing one of his hands before he can do anything about it and shaking it firmly.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" She asks as she releases it, folding her one available arm across her chest.

"No." The Doctor agrees, still staring at her skeptically.

The Mistress can't wait to kick the ass of whoever stole her idea and made it shit. It's… More personal now.

The Doctor snaps his sonic back down to his face, scanning the information.

"I've already told you it's not that way dear!" Missy shouts over people's screaming and the hiss of melting buildings.

"No one dumb enough to do something like this would be smart enough to set up in some outbuilding knowing it's the last place anyone would look. He'll be inside that towering castle which is the only undamaged one, most likely at the top, and with guards on every single level. He'll also have locked all the entrances and we'll have to either climb in through a window we'll have to smash or the air vents. The window will alert the stationed guards so we're best to go through that vent there in the alleyway and climb on up." The Mistress states, turning her hand in a expression of predictability, fingers loose with her palm to the sky, as she rolls her eyes.

The Doctor looks at her, one eyebrow raising in confusion.

"Come on. Are you really doubting that _I_ know how to enter a building on lockdown?" She asks.

The Doctor opens his mouth to speak then nods.

"Well. That's fair enough." He agrees, holding both arms out to the vent, "I expect you'll be going first then?" The Time Lord suggests.

Missy smirks, eyeing up the metal grate over the opening protruding from the wall about two metres up.

"As long as you hold the umbrella- wouldn't want my skirt to get ruined before I even got in."

After about an hour of clambering around inside the ventilation system they decide that it's been enough time in the rather cramped confines and they'd rather face whatever was waiting for them outside the next vent as opposed to wandering around with no clue where in the building they are.

The Mistress knocks out the closest vent they find and sticks her head into the darkness after the clatter goes unheralded by any kind of reactionary noise.

"Can't see anything." She calls back, shuffling past the vent, "You look?" She asks the Doctor.

Missy waits for the sound of him moving to stop.

"I can't see anything either." The Doctor confirms, gasping as the Time Lady quickly hooks her booted foot around his shoulder and shoves him towards the hole.

There's a brief shout, a thump and then silence.

"Well that was rude." The Doctor complains, dusting off his suit jacket over a hoodie.

The Mistress had thought when she'd first seen him that maybe the Time Lord wasn't really grasping the whole idea of human fashion so well but hadn't thought it the best time to mention it. Her friend had always had the weirdest fashion sense.

"Oh, shut up and get ready to catch me." Missy shouts back, rolling her eyes although the Doctor wouldn't see it.

The Mistress carefully sticks her legs out of the thankfully quite wide vent and waves them around gently until she locates the Doctor. She pushes herself out of the vent and he catches her just about with an 'oomph!'.

When everyone is resettled on the floor they get to thinking about their journey so far on their quest to rid this world of the evil that plagues it (also to rid the Doctor of his presumption that all evil in the universe is the Master's fault because it's only about 90% of the time- not that big a figure at all really).

"It was convenient that they've just cleaned the vents completely, that they were big enough to us the whole way through, that all the sharp edges were filed down to a safe level and covered with protective tape, that there were no right angle bends, that there were no vertical distances too large for us to just reach up to, that the light level was enough to see by and that they could fully support the weight of two adult Time Lords." The Mistress lists off, looking in the direction she thinks the Doctor is.

"You mean you think it's suspicious and a trap?" He asks, gaze sharp in the direction he thinks she is.

The Time Lady snorts.

"No. Don't be ridiculous!" She says, mocking in her tone.

"Ah- that's good. I was going to add that it's also lucky that no one heard us and that there weren't grates to prevent things from crawling around inside past the first one to get in." The Doctor says, nodding to himself.

"Now that we've got past the exposition why don't we shed some light on this situation." Missy suggests, fishing in her pockets for a torch she remembered putting in there some fourteen years ago or a lighter she'd picked up last week. The Doctor however is quicker and pulls out the sonic screwdriver which emits a dull blue light around them as well as a buzzing noise.

It reveals a small room, door on one side, rusted old vent cover between the Time Lords.

Around them is a plethora of wires and cables and paint cans and brushes and mops and buckets as well as some kind of blaster inside a glass case which says 'Break in case of invasion/ emergency/ personal vendetta'.

The Mistress stares at it for a second, hand against her chin, considering with one foot forwards.

"Hey, Doctor. Do you think that this counts more as an invasion on our part, an emergency on their part or as a personal vendetta for me because you're blaming me for this whole mess?" She asks, not turning back to look at the Time Lord.

"Oh look! It's a map of the whole building! I'll see how much further it is to the top." The Doctor says then turns a little, head tilted back to her though his eyes don't move from the conveniently placed map.

"Sorry- what was that?" He asks distractedly.

"Never mind." Missy says, shaking her head with affection and smashing the glass cover with a paint can and snatching out the blaster.

"Missy! Someone could have heard that! What are you doing with a gun? We're here to get whoever doing this to stop, not to kill them. Put that back!" The Time Lord hisses, fingers curling around her shoulder in reaction to the sound of shattering glass.

The Mistress shrugs her shoulder, ridding herself of his hand. She steps forwards, placing the paint can back down on the side and takes a pen from her pocket, filling out the form next to the broken box with the date, usage of the weapon and her full name scrawled in a language they would never be able to understand.

"I'll set it to stun, don't worry mum." She mocks, tucking the pen back into her outside pocket and folding her arms, blaster dangling from her right hand.

The Doctor raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything else, turning back to the map and tracing lines with his fingers.

"Oh. Looks like this is the store cupboard for the main control room. That was surprisingly easy." The Time Lord says more calmly, "Guess we'd better see if the door is unlocked or not before we let them know we're here by using the door-" He's cut off by a streak of light.

The Doctor sighs, head in his hand.

"-knob. Really Missy?" He asks.

The Mistress smiles sweetly.

"Whoops! My hand must have slipped!" She says with a grin, skipping off through the rumble.

"Whoever the fuck is here should shut this crap down so I can get on with not being accused of things which I didn't do." She sings, looking around the room and aiming her newly acquired gun at the sole occupant who is sitting in a high backed chair, smirking.

"I thought you were setting it to stun!" The Doctor exclaims, following her out.

"Dial's broke." Missy replies, dropping a twisted piece of plastic.

The Time Lord sighs again, squeezing his eyes shut in exasperation.

"Missy. If you intentionally do something you can't just pretend that it's always been that way. I've never fallen for that and neither will anyone else." He groans out.

"Ah- finally! You heroes are here but you're too late! My plan is in its final stages and there's nothing you can do to stop me!" The figure in the chair cries, "You see- it all started when I was a youngling. All the other younglings-" They begin the patented Evil Backstory/ Sob Story Speech only to be cut off by the sound of screeching metal.

The machine beside him sparks around a hole carved in its centre.

He scrambles to it, throwing the small furry creature from his lap in his haste.

"No! It cannot be! All my preparation! All the years of studying and library loans and testing!" He cries out.

The Doctor lays a hand on his shoulder.

"That doesn't have to be wasted." He says gently, "You could do what billions upon billions of people like you have done- channeled your brains and your past into efforts so no one has to feel that way again. Make this world a better place for everyone, not just you." The Time Lord suggests, voice low and soothing as he smiles grandfatherly at the violet skinned being.

They look up, desperation and horror in their eyes dimming a little at they stare into the eyes of the ancient Time Lord.

"I- I will! I'll do my best to make this world a better place! There's so many things I could do- could change- I could start even in a small way by supporting-" They ramble, standing shakily and going to the chalkboard tucked away in the corner of the room. Their eyes shine, new life in them.

The Doctor smiles, heading off to the main door.

Missy follows, both disgusted by the Doctor's display of hope and pleased by the fact she'd been proven innocent.

"So I was right, wasn't I? It's not always me." She prods as they leave the room, door closing automatically behind him.

The Doctor grins at her, mentally patting himself on the back for his speech.

"No. It wasn't you this time." He agrees, "Although you were a bit heavy on using the blaster for no reason." He adds honestly.

"Ah! Forgot about that! Have to return it! I'll catch up in a bit!" The Mistress says as she begins to jog back.

The door opens for her, closing again behind her.

The figure at the board doesn't look up, working on some huge equation that makes the Time Lady smile softly at its simplicity.

She fires, hands steady right through the centre of the alien which drops, wide eyed and slack jawed with a hole oozing with orange gel.

"Here's your gun back." She says, voice low and eyes half lidded, her head tilted up as she tosses the blaster on top of the creature's body.

The door opens, letting her out, and closes again, leaving the room empty.


End file.
